I stared up at the ceiling of my house. Not my dad’s house, but my house. My house in Florida. I’d been here for about a week now, taking up residence on the couch once again. Interestingly enough, after spending the last several months in Idaho, this house didn’t feel right anymore.

The smells were wrong. The weather too warm. The house too big. Most importantly, I was all alone.

I had left the diner in a rush after seeing a side of Julian I’d never seen before. I vaguely remembered telling Mike I quit and wasn’t coming back. Gwen had followed me to my car as I walked away in shock, trying to convince me to stay. She begged me to listen to her, to listen to Julian.

I didn’t want to listen. I went home, packed my bag, bought the first flight to Tampa and was on my way home. I hadn’t thought I would use the house waiting for me as an emergency escape, not when things were finally looking up.

Things changed.

Julian had scared the crap out of me.

I went from trusting that boy with my secrets to being afraid of the anger simmering beneath the surface. I had shared with him things I had never shared with anyone else. Not my mom, Gwen, anyone. Then, the very next day, I watched as he and his brother beat each other to a pulp in the parking lot.

I couldn’t do it.

I had been hanging on by a thread, thinking I would never be the carefree girl I was before my mother’s death. Thinking I was cursed to roam the earth as an empty shell. I had found comfort in my friendship with Gwen and Mitch. I had reached the point that I wanted to start over in my relationship with my dad and forgive the past.

But Julian, Julian had been the one to breathe life into my body.

How could this boy who was so tender and gentle turn into the wild beast I witnessed?

I did the only thing I knew. I ran. I ran and didn’t look back.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table again. It had been lighting up with notifications since I left. I reached over and grabbed it without getting up of the sofa and lifted the screen to my face to read the accumulating texts.

Dad: Please, Katie, talk to me.

Dad: Just let me know you’re okay.

Dad: Tell me if there’s anything I can do.

He had seen me when I came home to pack my bags. He knew that I had left and I was in Florida. That didn’t stop him from sending daily messages asking if I was okay, if I wanted to talk. I read the same words over and over again. Words that said he missed me and wanted to make things right.

He wasn’t the only one.

Gwen had called at least once every day I had been gone and had sent near-constant messages letting me know what was going on. Marco and Julian had both been arrested after the fight. Julian had been fired from his job at the diner after causing the scene. My dad was missing me and even stooping so low as to ask Mike if he knew anything.

But most of the texts she sent were pleas to get me to respond. She wanted me to talk to my dad, to listen to what Julian had to say, to just let her know I was okay.

I never responded.

However, the worse was Julian. If Gwen had been the queen of harassment, Julian was the polar opposite. He had sent one text since I saw him after the fight. One message. Two words.

I’m sorry.

I still hadn’t decided if I was grateful he was giving me my space, or if I was pissed he wasn’t fighting harder for me. If he felt anywhere near what I felt for him, he should be calling or texting me to explain. Instead, it had been near radio silence from him.

I’d been living on delivery and restaurants that had a drive-through, so I perked up when the doorbell rang. I was expecting a pizza, and had big plans of staying indoors and learning just how much of a large supreme pizza I was capable of eating on my own. I wondered just how much more the elastic waistband on my leggings could take.

“Just a second!” I yelled as another knock came, louder this time. I was looking for my wallet and doing a quick assessment of myself making sure I was decent enough to answer the door. “Geez,” I said under my breath. “Impatient, much?”

Soon, I was at the door turning the key in the lock. When I finally opened the door, my grandmother stood before me with her arms crossed, looking furious.

“Grandma?” I asked in surprise, looking around the front porch. “You’re not the delivery guy.”

“No, I’m not,” she said, her voice tense. She walked past me into the house a few feet before turning around to face me. “Now, do you want to tell me why I am just now learning my granddaughter is back home? And why I had to learn that from your father? He’s worried sick, by the way. Or why you are back here doing who knows what, allowing yourself to fall back into a depression?”

“I’m not depressed, grandma.”

She pinned me with her stare. “It’s not normal to live like this. To ignore your friends and family. To hide away. It’s normal to be sad after the loss of your mom. No one expects you to be rainbows and sunshine. But you’ve got to keep your family in the loop.”

“No, I don’t. I’m eighteen. I don’t have to listen to anyone anymore.” I snapped at her. I wasn’t even mad at my grandma. She was concerned and deep down I knew she was just doing this because she cared. It wasn’t enough to stop my attitude though. “And, besides, it doesn’t even have anything to do with that.”

“Katie, you don’t have to pretend to be strong. Your grandpa and I are still so broken over her death. No one is asking you to be happy all the time.”

“What are you asking for then?” I asked, feeling my anger dissolve almost as quickly as if had come on. In its place came the raw feeling of sorrow threatening to take over. I could feel it breaking through the walls I had been slowly building without even realizing it. With that break came the start of my tears.

It was slow at first, a leaking of water from my eyes without actually crying. But the longer my grandma and I stood there facing one another, the more the walls crumbled. The silent tears went to full blown ugly crying. My voice came out in fitful wails and my body shook from the sheer force of my sobs.

I heard my grandma say something softly under her breath, so soft I couldn’t understand the words, but knew from her tone it came from a place of love. And the next instant her arms were wrapped tightly around me, letting me lean into her. Whether it was comfort or pity, I was beyond caring. I just missed my grandma and needed this. I didn’t realize how much I needed to let myself break again.

My grandma let me cry until the tears dried on their own, never rushing me and making me feel like an inconvenience. When I was done, I stepped away, leaving the safety of her embrace. I wiped my eyes on my shirt and looked at a large wet spot on her shirt my tears had caused.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pointing to the offending spot.

“Don’t be,” she said with so much love, tears threatened to come back. “I told you. No one expects you to be done grieving over your mom. It doesn’t work like that.” She put her arm over my shoulder and led me to the living room and back to that stupid couch that had taken too many precious hours from me. “Sit down.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said honestly, as I found a comfortable sitting position. “I thought I was doing better. I made friends in Idaho and was actually happy. And then,” I started thinking of Julian and the fight I had witnessed that had frightened me so much. “Something happened and I lost it. It was like losing my mom all over again. I can’t explain it.”

“Oh, Katie.” My grandmother grabbed my hands in hers. “Loss is a strange thing. It makes us react in ways we don’t understand. Your grandpa has organized and reorganized the shed more times than I can count since you’ve been gone. It’s driving me crazy. He barely even has time to work on anything because he’s devoting all his time to the prep. It’s how he’s coping.”

“I’d say that’s pretty harmless.”

“Of course it is. But it doesn’t make it any more rational. You need to give yourself time and space to cry. When I encouraged you to go to Idaho, I wasn’t trying to make you stop being sad. I didn’t think you should stop missing your mom. I miss her every day.”

“I know.”

“But I also did it because it’s not okay to sit around and be a zombie either. You need to find your balance.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“No, honey, I don’t think you do. You have been hiding. Hiding from your feelings in Idaho, hiding from your future on this couch. You need to figure out what you’re going to do. Are you going to run and hide? Or do you want to face both your feelings and your future head-on instead?”

“It’s going to be hard to do that. I wouldn’t even know how to start.”

“No one said it was easy. You’ve been dealt a hard hand, Katie. But it doesn’t mean life is impossible. Or that you’re the only one facing struggles. Take some time to figure it out. Go for a walk. Take a trip to the coffee shop. Do not stay in this house any longer, granddaughter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted her playfully.

“Now, I’m going to go back home and let your Papa know everything is okay here. That will give you a chance to shower and get yourself out of the house.”

The doorbell rang as she said this and we both looked toward the door. “I guess my pizza is finally here.”

“Well, this works out perfectly, because in my hurry to make sure you were okay, I didn’t start dinner. I’ll take that home for us and that will force you to leave the house in search of other options,” she said, kissing my cheek before standing up. “I’ll even pay for the delivery.”

“I love you, grandma.”

“I love you, too. But don’t you dare scare me like this again. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“And call your dad while you’re at it. I’m not sure what happened to have you leaving like a bat out of hell. But he’s worried about you.”

I bet he was. I hadn’t stopped to explain what I was thinking when I packed up and left. I hadn’t really understood what was going on enough to begin to explain. “I will, grandma.”

She looked at me for another second, as though trying to decide if she believed me before going to the door and getting the pizza. “I’ll call you later, honey.”

“Sounds good.”

And then she was gone.

I was left to think through what she had said.